The next month and a half flew by, sometimes the convoy was attacked by magic beast or bandits, but that lessened significantly once they were out of the Prious pass, from there it was smooth sailing, they were only attacked about once a week, so Mercury and Marie had lots of time to flirt around (While still taking care of Max of course) soon they were able to see the walls of Ode, their destination though it looked like they had to spend one last night outside as they were unable to reach the gate before it closed for the day
"And there…"
Mercury finished setting up the tent, something he was quite used to by this point, then he looked over to the campfire and saw Marie playing with Max and showed a smile that then slowly disappeared from his face as he thought
'Right, Max… What to do about him… If we could find his parents it would be for the best… What to do… Guess me, Julia and Marie can adopt him in the worst-case scenario…'
What will Mercury find in Ode? Well, hopefully Julia...